Cow Breeding: Opportunity To Develop Skills In Refugee Camp

The New Educational Center for Hope (NECH), located in the
Nyarugusu Refugee Camp in the Kasulu District of Tanzania, is
looking at the opportunity to institute a cow breeding program.

According to Bilombele Askulu, the Executive Director of the
Center and Coordinator for Nyarugusu Camp, this initiative will
not only give the orphans a chance to obtain much needed milk,
but will also give them the opportunity to develop their skills
as they learn about agriculture and livestock breeding.

Home to 364 HIV/AIDS orphans who are connected to North America via
RESPECT International's involvement with NECH, the
plan is that NECH volunteers will be in charge of caring for the cows,
but may also include refugee assistance.

The Nyarugusu Refugee Camp presents us with an example of some of the
effects of diseases like HIV/AIDS and how these effects are reinforced
by impoverished and congested conditions.

The problem of HIV/AIDS and immunodeficiency in Africa is one that can
seem to dominate the struggle of helping the continent while we try to
make sense of its politics, difference and material needs.

In 1988, the Kagere region of Tanzania was described by journalists
as the epicenter of an AIDS epidemic that might destroy the entire
country, according to a report by Dr. Marc Deru.

Although conditions have improved with increasing birth rates and a
decline in deaths, the problem of diseases that establish or thrive
upon a weakened immune system still remains.

Bilombele emphasizes that the orphans live in extremely difficult
conditions and are in need of nutritious food like milk. He says that
because they cannot afford to buy them they must rely on donations and
funds from humanitarian organizations.

He says that when the project is successful they will be able to
think about meat as another source of nutrition, but the main object
at the moment is to get milk.